


Sleepless

by GuiltyRed



Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Canonical Character Death, General, M/M, Romance, Spoilers for end of Advent Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuiltyRed/pseuds/GuiltyRed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud reflects on love, and how it usually hits when one isn't looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Sleepless  
> **Author:** GuiltyRed**  
> Rating:** G  
> **Warnings:** spoilers for end of Advent Children  
> **Word count:** 372  
> **Summary:** Cloud reflects on love, and how it usually hits when one isn't looking.  
> **Prompt:** Cloud/Kadaj: Missing You – "I felt his soul go right through me."

Some nights are worse than others. Sleep refuses to come, and I pad downstairs quietly so as not to wake Tifa or the kids. They've been so good to me, it bothers me that I can't just be happy here.

But…I can't forget him.

It's funny, I'd never really looked at a guy like that before – and I wasn't even looking at Kadaj. He was a fragment of Sephiroth, a remnant, a ghost. And Sephiroth himself was never one I would have had romantic thoughts about: the man was first a legend, then a monster. Not my type, in either case.

But, something happened that day, after we had fought and Sephiroth had faded and Kadaj lay dying in my arms. He'd smiled up into the healing rain, and real, human tears had flowed from those pale green eyes as though washing away everything we had just been put through. Kadaj had called me 'brother' and relaxed into the rain, and again I released a soul to the Lifestream, only he didn't fall through water: he flew up into it, mixing with the rain that I knew was a part of Aerith.

I felt his soul go right through me. _His_ soul, not a fragment or a puppet or anything broken, but _Kadaj_, a young being with hopes and dreams and finally, _finally_, a chance at reaching them. He poured through me like rain through sky, cleansing away old hurts that I had tried so long to just forget.

On nights like this one, I feel him there, just out of reach, like so many others whom I would give my life to see again, just one more time. I feel his laughter and his joy and his wide-eyed wonder flowing through the world, unfettered by mortal flesh, and my heart yearns to join him.

I know it isn't my time; Tifa and the kids need me, and I think there is still more debt for a last SOLDIER to pay.

But, when my time does come, I know that the one who waits to greet me will have fine silver hair and pale green eyes, and a thousand stories to tell me about a world he finally came to love.


End file.
